


Stay For Christmas

by Pale Rider (Boothros)



Series: Staying For Christmas [1]
Category: The Professionals
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-04 05:17:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5321852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boothros/pseuds/Pale%20Rider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can the the pain of loss and abandonment be forgiven and can the magic of Christmas ever bring Bodie his dearest wish?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay For Christmas

Ray Doyle trudged along the frost dusted street. Trips into town nowadays were mercifully rare seeing as the bus couldn’t take him all the way home, but the visit to the central library had provided enough literary company to see him through the Christmas period. The cold was doing nothing to help his aging bones however. He ruefully smiled that such mundane things as weather now caused him concern. Only twenty minutes and he would be safely back in his cosy little house. He had programmed the central heating just to be sure of it.

As he was walking past ‘Marios’, his musings almost made him miss the quiet plea.

“Spare the price of a cup of tea, Sir?”

Suddenly the suburban world around him shunted to stillness. The blood in his veins shuddered on the way to his heart. He came to an abrupt halt as if he had suddenly hit an invisible brick wall. That voice. The voice that he had wondered if he would ever hear again. That voice had spoken to him. That treasured voice. Gathering himself, he turned back to the dark figure sheltering in the doorway. The tears had already sprung from his own eyes before he faced the tired blue ones looking hopefully back at him.

Bodie shrank back interpreting the man’s stance as the sign of yet another familiar beating. The stranger turned slowly. Just a lecture then, nothing physical. Amazing how informative the general public could be when it came to telling him where he had gone wrong. The face when he saw it wasn’t hostile however. It was gentle and kind. Ashamed, he couldn’t meet the eyes at first, but when he did, he saw that they were crying. He looked harder, bemused, and the realisation suddenly hit him. He gasped hard enough to knock the breath from himself. Unable to speak, he was forced to lay himself at the other man’s mercy.

“Bodie! Oh my dear God, Bodie it’s you!”

Bodie found himself swept to his feet and embraced in a cloud of warmth.

“Oh my Christ, you’re freezing! For heavens sake I’ll get you more than tea, you stupid sod! Come on, into the warm with you.”

Ray urged Bodie towards the café almost causing Bodie’s bad leg to give out altogether. Bodie replied for the first time.

“I’m sorry, Ray but that man won’t let me in there.”

“What, Mario? He’s a sweetheart!”

“Maybe, but he does prefer people who pay him. He doesn’t want me round here, but I do rather like that doorway.”

Ignoring Bodie’s comments, Ray bustled him into the steaming café. Though the place was empty of customers following the breakfast rush, chaos soon ensued. Mario’s enthusing at Ray’s appearance soon warred with his sight of Bodie.

“Mister Ray! Welcome, but why are you here with that man? Watch that man, Mister Ray, he might rob you! Turn him back out and I will cook you a nice a breakfast!”

“Mario, ‘that man’ is my dearest friend. Cook us both a big breakfast. I will pay you and he won’t rob you.”

Mario was instantly compliant to his customer’s orders and went off to cook.

“I asked him for leftovers and then I rifled through his bins. He doesn’t really like me now much as you can probably tell.”

“I don’t care about all that, Bodie just tell me where you’ve been for the last god knows how many years?”

“Trying to get back to you, Ray.”

“Well now you have. I knew you would, I just didn’t know when. Where were you in the meantime?”

Mario arrived with hot mugs of tea. Despite its temperature, Bodie drank deeply.

“People think that the homeless are just hungry, Ray. The fact that sometimes a simple hot drink could save our lives is something that they don’t really wonder about. I AM homeless, you do realise that, don’t you?”

“Where were you?”

“Mozambique.”

“On who’s orders?”

“A request rather than an order.”

“A request you never would have granted lightly. Tell me.”

“It was the minister. He never really did like us, did he?”

“Blamed us for the loss of his protégé didn’t he?”

“He must have known that Willis was a waste of space but it’s always easier to shift the guilt onto someone else.”

“So what did he say to you?”

Bodie’s voice was getting clearer with the tea and Ray suddenly appreciated how simple dehydration must be a problem to those who were penniless.

“He knew that we all in a spin when Cowley died. He knew that you and I were due to take over, that the old man had be coaching us for years for the role. It didn’t suit him to have CI5 carry on though. He’d never liked it and didn’t want to sanction any more funds for it.”

“What did the old bastard SAY to you?”

“He said that I had a promising position waiting for me within MI6. He said that you were going to be set up with a new law enforcement agency, that CI5 had died with Cowley and that it was the best he had to offer me.”

“Oh shit, Bodie, you sold out to him for that?”

“No of course I bloody didn’t!”

“Just tell me why, Bodie. Why did you run out on me?”

Bodie looked at his old friend just as Mario brought two heaped plates to them. At first Bodie seemed thrilled by the food, but Ray was dismayed to observe that Bodie’s appetite was a shadow of its former legendary status.

Peckish, Ray ate slowly so as not to embarrass his depleted friend.

“Why did you leave, Bodie? I turned around and you had gone.”

“I’m so sorry, Ray I thought I’d be away a month at most. It was meant to be two weeks and if anyone had said it would be longer than that, I would have snatched you away and tried to talk you into anything, anything but what the minister was asking.”

“So why did you go?”

“He persuaded me with the stick rather than the carrot, Ray. He made lots of promises, none of which I believed nor cared about. He must have seen how that went down as then he started with the threats.”

“Threats?”

“He said that you still had a promising career to look forward to. That it would be a shame if it was to come out that two male government agents were known to have been sleeping together. That it would be a waste if you couldn’t find another job in the security services ever again.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me all this?”

“You were still so upset about Cowley. We all were. I knew the minister wanted something from me. Something to prove my worth to MI6. He more or less said that if I did what he wanted, all the other problems would magically disappear. The last thing I wanted was for you to have to deal with any more grief so I was prepared to hear him out.”

“So what was your brief?”

“There was a supposed six agent holed up in Mozambique, injured. I was to go over there, get him out and bring him home. I was to meet local contacts who would provide me with all that I needed, papers transport and weaponry. All I had to do was find my man and get us back home and dry. The minister swore this would be the only mission of its kind, that it was too risky to have agents in that country any more. I’d never been in Mozambique, but due to my experiences in Angola I was apparently the only man who had enough remotely relative experience to attempt the job.”

“So what happened?”

“None of the contacts ever showed up. I’ve since had reason to believe that the ‘missing’ agent never even existed. The last contact I had with MI6 was seeing the plane that landed me into a civil war zone taxi off down a field. I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d be captured. You can survive for quite a long time in an empty jungle, Ray but one that’s crawling with guerrillas on opposing sides is a different matter entirely. Perhaps fortunately, I was picked up by the Liberation Front. Had I been found by the Resistance Movement, I probably would have been shot on sight, which still would have been preferable to working alongside those murdering bastards. The FRELIMO fighters were intrigued by me though. It wasn’t every day they found a white European just wandering about in their neck of the woods. Through the tiny bit of English they’d ever heard and my rusty Angolan Portuguese, I persuaded them I was a soldier of fortune trying to work my way back to England where I intended to single handledly bugger the entire British government. It wasn’t a million miles away from the truth, Ray.”

 “Bloody hell! What on earth did you do then, Bodie?”

Mario chose that moment to come and clear the plates, looking disapprovingly at Bodie’s half-eaten meal.

“You not a like Mario’s bigga breakfast?”

Ray shot him a dark look.

“The food was fine, Mario. Could we have more tea please?”

Muttering something under his breath about ungrateful tramps, Mario shuffled off to prepare more tea and Bodie resumed his story.

“I worked for them, Ray. They promised that if I proved my allegiance to them for as long as they wanted, they would help me gain a passage home. I had no choice. Even if I could have escaped them, my only chance would have been to get in contact with the government soldiers and FRELIMO were always careful not to get close enough to any of those. I stayed with them for years. They paid me, the same as they paid everyone else, but it was never going to amount to a fortune. They were no angels however. Though they never performed the sheer number of atrocities that the resistance movement did, they still performed them and expected me too as well. I’ve done some terrible things, Ray. We lived alongside the villagers and I tried to atone for some of my sins by helping them whenever I could. I thought so many times about just throwing myself into a ravine and being done with it all. I couldn’t though. I couldn’t end it until I’d spoken to you. That’s all I ever lived for in the end, just the chance to talk to you one last time.”

Ray covered Bodie’s trembling fingers with his own hands. Bodie twitched his head as if shaking off an unwanted memory and quietly carried on.

“The head of our group was killed by a landmine. There was no real leadership for a while after that and we wandered too near a government check point. That was when I was shot.”

Bodie winced as fresh tea was placed by him. Doyle eyes nervously flickered towards Mario who respectfully held up his hands to indicate that he had heard nothing.

“I woke up in a field hospital. It was hopelessly underfunded and ill equipped but it was protected by the soldiers and headed by an English doctor. I sometimes think that they only kept me alive in order to find out who I was and what my group’s plans were. When I first met Joel, the doctor who saved my life, it all came pouring out. The fact that MI6 had sent me to that shithole and left me there to rot. Being captured and then held captive by FRELIMO for years. Needing to get back to England so that I could just for one last time talk to you …”

Unnoticed to Bodie and Doyle, Mario had quietly settled himself down at the next table and started to listen, quite unable to help himself.

“I was on a plane within the next week. I wasn’t really fit to travel, but transport was hard to come by and it might have been months before another flight became available. Someone had cobbled together enough fake papers to get me through Brize Norton and then I was on my own. I changed my African currency and made my way to London. That’s when I got really sick. The wound in my thigh had become infected. I collapsed somewhere in Whitehall. An ambulance took me to the nearest accident and emergency and they kept me in hospital for two nights whilst they administered the antibiotics that Joel’s hospital had been sadly lacking. This must have been, erm, about five years ago?”

“So you’ve been in the UK all that time?"

“Well yes, after a fashion. My hospital stay ended up being a bit longer than anyone had imagined. I was the model patient during the day. Soon as they called ‘lights out’ however, I was raving. I screamed the place down apparently. They tested me for alcohol and drugs and when they found nothing, they tried to talk to me. I couldn’t tell them about all the things in my head though, Ray. The things I’d seen, the things I’d done. They had no idea where I’d been or who I was. In the end my behaviour was declared too dangerous to be let loose in public and I was sectioned into a mental health unit. They pumped me full of drugs for two years until the funding for such places ended. We were all set free like psychotic little lambs when they closed their doors. I had precious little money and my leg was never going to be the same again but when the drugs cleared out of my system I made my way back to Whitehall. For all the warfare I’d seen in east Africa, it was in London where my own real battle began.”

Fresh tears flowed freely from Ray’s eyes as he urged his friend to continue.

“I was determined to see you. I banged and bashed on every door I could think of. It never occurred to me that after seven years I was officially dead. There was no record of who I was or had ever been. I tried office after dreary office trying to claim back my own identity. I soon got a name for myself as the loony who wanted to talk to someone high up in the police. Security guards soon learnt to recognise me. I ran out of money. I tried to take on casual work to keep me in accommodation, but my leg stopped me from doing much. The first night I slept on the street was almost a comfort. I knew that I didn’t have to have a job or money to be able to do that. I started to smell something awful though, Ray. I couldn’t even get into the official buildings that I knew held my answers anymore.

I was sitting on a bench on The Strand one day when a man sat down next to me. That man was Murphy. I’ve no idea what the minister said about me to my ex colleagues as Murph wasn’t exactly pleased to see me but I begged him, Ray, I just begged him to tell me where you were. He gave me the general idea of where you were living on the proviso that I never contacted him again. I’ve been wandering these streets now for about six months.”

“So by declaring you dead they denied you of your pension, the wages you should have been earning and finally your own name? The fucking bastards, Bodie though it comes as no surprise to me. I still speak to Murph sometimes. They told him that you had sold CI5 out and me with it. You know that I would never believe that, Bodie. I couldn’t convince him that it was all bullshit, but that didn’t matter. I still believed. I always believed. I knew that you’d come back to me if you could. Either that or I had to think that you were dead. I couldn’t do that, Bodie. That would have been the end of my hope.”

“I see you understand, Ray. I’ll be forever grateful for that and for the ‘bigga’ breakfast. My mission is completed now. I got my dearest wish in speaking with you.”

Bodie made to leave but both Ray and Mario rose to stop him.

“Bodie, come home with me. I’ve got something to show you.”

“I’ve done what I needed to do, Ray. I’ll leave you in peace as I am now.”

“Bodie if I have to kidnap you together with Mario and all his sons and nephews help, you are coming home with me.”

“Is it far, Ray?”

Ray cast his eyes towards Bodie’s leg.

“Mario, can you order me a taxi please?”

Mario willingly complied and a car was waiting for them in minutes. As they made to leave the café two hours after entering it, Mario embraced Bodie, tears rolling from his own eyes.

“You are always a welcome here for a bigga breakfast, Mister Soldier.”

Bodie shyly smiled his thanks and went to join Ray in the car.

The journey to Ray’s house only took three minutes. In that time Ray still managed to outline his career to Bodie.

“It was a new post, Bodie hoping to curb the drug problem. I was given no budget and no experienced staff. I knew they expected me to quit and them be rid of me so I played them at their own game. I coached my given staff and eventually we became a force to be reckoned with. I had Williams on my team, remember him? He’d done something to piss his bosses off, that’s how I got all of them, people that they couldn’t really sack but didn’t really want any more.

Taught me a lot, did Williams. He knew he was due for the chop though nobody had ever really given him much reason why. There was this bloke you see, Robert Maxwell. He worked in the newspaper industry and for some reason, his activities buggered up a lot of people's pensions. Employers tried to get rid of long standing workers in all sorts of fields after that. I don’t think that was anything to do with your case, that minister was long dead when Maxwell came to light but it really pissed Williams off. Him and me were kind of friends by then. He warned me to keep every bit of paperwork I’d ever had. Anyway, we’re here now, welcome to Chez Ray."

Bodie looked at the well-lit cottage at the end of a silent lane.

“It’s not heaven, but it is home.”

 

 

 

“Ray it’s a lovely house. I can’t go in though. I’m filthy and I stink.”

“If you don’t cut the crap, I might just have to try having to kidnap you all on my own which would play the devil with my rheumatism!”

Bodie allowed himself to be guided into a world that was pure Doyle. Everything about the man was here from the beloved aroma to the tin soldiers to the messy desk. Bodie wanted to cry at the familiarity of it all.

“There’s plenty of hot water. I’ll start you a bath.”

Bodie nodded absently whilst still recognising items that his memory had long forgotten. He soon found himself ushered towards the upstairs bathroom. Without mention, Ray helped him with the stairs.

“Do you need help getting in it?” Ray indicated towards the foaming bathtub.

“I dunno. I haven’t tried getting in it before.”

“It’s fine, I’ll stay.”

He gently helped Bodie position himself into the fragrant tub. Bodie’s look of bliss was all the thanks that Ray needed as payment.

“Do you want me to wash that mop of yours?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, He couldn’t even remember all the times that Bodie had washed and dried and brushed his hair after all the times that they had got soaked and muddied and downright exhausted in the past. He put his hands to work and the sheer pleasure his fingers seemed to cause his captive gave him pleasure himself. He left Bodie to his soak and went downstairs.

Bodie luxuriated in his surroundings. If this was to be his last night on earth, it was sure proving to be a good one. When the water finally cooled too much for comfort, he haphazardly made his way out of the bath.

“Ray? Where’s the bath cleaner?”

In an instant, Ray was by his side.

“You stupid bugger, why didn’t you call me to help you?”

“Ray that bath is filthy! I’m ashamed just looking at it.”

“Oh for once in your miserable life, Bodie will you just shut up? Now, I’m washing your clothes. They won’t be dry till tomorrow so I’ve laid some warm things out for you. I used to be quite smug about the fact that you couldn’t fit into my stuff. It would all but swim on you now you skinny bastard!”

“You don’t need to put me up, Ray.”

“Are you kidding? If you so even think of leaving this house, I’ll just have to punch your lights out and keep you here as my prisoner!”

“I’m not much of a catch, Ray!”

“You’re the only one that I’ve ever wanted for all these years. If your dying wish is to talk to me, then mine is the same. Let’s have that talk now that we at last have the chance to and see how we feel after eh?”

Bodie looked at Ray tiredly.

“It’s ok. I can see you need to sleep, but I said I had something to show you. You’ll be pleased, I hope, Bodie to know that you’re not dead.”

“Sorry, Ray?”

“I knew that you would never just disappear of your own accord. Not at such a sad time as that. As soon as I was informed that you were engaged on an op, I went to your flat. I grabbed all that was important and I’ve kept it all ever since. That was possibly one reason that you became persona non grata. When that scrote of a minister died, no one knew where your paperwork was. Even he didn’t know that I had it but he never made anything of it as he obviously thought that you were dead. I’ve still got most of your stuff here actually, Bodie though you might find that some of the fashions have changed a bit!”

“My God, Ray, you kept my stuff?”

“That was just the start of it, Bodie. There was so much info on CI5 agents that they were going to destroy. Don’t get me wrong, I got our own files out before the minister was cold in the ground but after him, nobody seemed interested in all that paperwork. I snatched it and it all just sat in a cupboard next to my office for years. I wasn’t allowed to keep stuff on current or controversial cases but literally nobody was interested in agent files. When Williams found out what I was keeping, he almost threw a fit. He advised me to get it all legally copied and in my spare time, I did. When I die, the files on each and every permanent CI5 employee will still be safely recorded onto microfilms and computers and held by parties that are impenetrable. For the sake of nostalgia however, you might like to look at this.”

Ray flicked the switch on a strong box and Bodie saw his past laid out in front of him. It was all there, his CI5 record, his recorded time in the army, the paras, the SAS. The box finally exposed his National Insurance card and his birth certificate.

“There’s not only enough to get you back your pension here, Bodie but enough to get some substantial compensation when they find out what you’ve been through. I know a solicitor who would find a case like yours right up his street. I’m pretty sure that they will pay you out quite handsomely when they find themselves up against him! In the meantime, you really do look as if you need a kip.”

Bodie allowed himself to be bedded down in the safest haven he had known for years. He snuggled into the warm quilt, for once safe and secure. Ray looked in on him at him at eight o’clock. Bodie looked so peaceful that Ray was loath to wake him but the blue eyes flickered open at his approach.

“There’s chicken casserole ready if you want it. If not, sleep on.” he said quietly.

“You trying to feed me up, Sunshine?”

"You bet your life I am. There’s more flesh on that chicken than there is on you!”

Feeling a little better, Bodie got up, heartened by the thought of food. And Ray.

As he served the steaming dish to his old partner, Ray started to speak.

“It’s a two bedroom house, Bodie. I bought it cheap years ago. Nobody ever expected my department to be a success. I gee-upped the blokes I was given. Made ‘em realise we were getting the best we’d ever get. As I told you, I had no budget and no resume. So I employed CI5 tack ticks and didn’t give a fuck. Before I knew it, we were one of the most successful departments going. The government changed as you must know and my post became one of purse holder. Then I had a series of funny turns. I was presenting projections towards a new minister when I flaked out. Embarrassed beyond measure I went to see a doctor. It turned out that my blood pressure was really low. A direct result of being shot so many years ago by Mayli. The medics said I’d be fine as long as I avoided all stress. My job was definitely out, I was medically retired out at fifty seven and for my last six months I only worked two days a week. That was fine by me. I started to put good people into positions that they were born to be in. Positions that nobody else had thought to put them. I had a lot of time off and I started to do the house up. It was relaxing work and I loved it. I s’pose every little decision I made included your imaginary imput. It’s not a mansion but there’s plenty of room for two.”

Bodie yawned loudly but still turned his attention towards food.

“I can’t live here, Ray if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You can’t? Please tell me why, Bodie?”

“I swore I was staying alive just to talk to you, to explain things to you. I’ve done that now.”

“So you want to be responsible for my life too then?”

“No of course not! What do you mean by that?”

“Life as I knew it changed forever when you went, Bodie. I’ve hoped forever since that you’d come back to me and you have. If you don’t want the same as me now though I understand.”

“What do you want, Ray?”

“You, Bodie.”

“You can’t want me, I’m just a scruffy tramp!”

“Bodie, I’ve waited so long for you to come back to me. If you don’t want me anymore then just tell me. I always keep a loaded gun in the house. I’ve waited so long for you. If you don’t want me now just say the word, but I can’t lose you again.”

Bodie suddenly realised what Ray was saying. That he was still wanted by the most important person of all.

“I thought after all these years, you’d hate my guts. I let you down, Ray. I abandoned you. All I wanted was the chance to say I was sorry.”

“Well consider the apology accepted.”

“This chicken is gorgeous by the way.”

“If you hang around another couple of days, I’ll cook you a turkey.”

“Oh my God, it’s Christmas isn’t it? I think it’s wise to assume that my credit with Fortnum’s has expired so sorry for the lack of gifts, this year, Ray.”

“You brought yourself. There’s nothing else I needed.”

Bodie gave a heart-breaking look.

“I’m not the man I was back then, Ray. I lie and steal to feed myself. I can’t walk very far and nine times out of ten when I fall asleep, I wake up screaming.”

“I’ve no doubt we can get your money back for you. Remember how pissed off I can be when people tell me ‘No’? We’ll get the doctors to look at your leg and see what can be done to get you some physio or pain relief. If getting off the streets doesn’t sort you out then we’ll get you to a head doctor and get you all counselled up and if neither of them work, then I can be your crutch and I’ll buy myself some ear plugs.”

Bodie stared across the table towards the person who meant the world to him. The one person who had really made his life worth living. For the first time since he was a tiny boy, he allowed himself to cry. The tears once they had started, didn’t seem to want to stop. Ray still wanted him. That was more than he had ever dared hope for.

“Just say that you’ll stay for Christmas. I didn’t really have any other plans this year.”

Bodie looked again at his partner. His own face was a mass of tears that he didn’t seem to know what to do with so he was relieved to see that Ray was in a similar state.

“I’ll stay for Christmas, Ray. Just as long as you know that I still love you. I’ll never ever stop loving you.”

Ray lifted his eyes and then smiled.

“Well that’s alright then.”

Two nights later Bodie heard his excited partner’s cries.

“Bodie, it’s snowing again! Let’s go and watch it for a minute?”

They stood on their doorstep looking out at the silently falling flakes. Embraced together they watched winter's magical spectacle.

“Dunno about you mate, but pretty as it is I need to get back into the warm and I’ve got a bloody turkey to cook!”

Bodie looked fondly at the man he cherished.

“And I haven’t forgotten that I’m peeling the potatoes.”

“Oh fuck this, Bodie, next Christmas we’ll go away somewhere hot!”

Bodie shut the door on the chilled night. He would never feel the cold again all the time that Ray was by his side and he sent a quick prayer of thanks to whatever Christmas angel had made it so. In the meantime, his partner was yelling at him about vegetables. Happier than he could ever remember being, Bodie went to find the potato peeler.

Later that night whilst their Christmas meal was gently cooking, Bodie shifted in his sleep. Instinctively, Ray drew him closer and he settled again, warm and safe and finally home.

 

 


End file.
